Two weeks before I left Japan after two years, my car was totaled in an accident that happened while I was driving home at night in a rainstorm. No one was hurt, but it raised a bit of a flurry before my final departure. Two months before I left Kosovo after two years I suffered a knee injury that required I leave one month before the end of my contract so I could have surgery back home. Again, nothing too major, but there was a definite flurry there too. Here in Ankara, I live on Güvenlik Cadessi – literal translation being Security Street. Yes, part of the welcoming gut feeling I had when I selected this apartment back in September was its street name. However, as I start to get ready to leave Turkey in a month it seems as though a street name could not protect me from my departure-from-foreign-home curse.
As I walked the stairs up to my second floor (third floor by US standards) apartment after work yesterday, I heard a flurry of chatter in the hallway. I have almost never seen my next-door neighbors before, but I have heard their little yippy dog frequently. They, along with some other building-mates I had barely glimpsed in the past, were chattering away about nothing I could understand until I tried to put the key into my door, seeing a major gap between the doorframe and knob. When the key wouldn’t budge in the lock, I quickly figured out what the flurry was about. It soon became clear to me that the neighboring apartment had been victimized as well. The police were on their way, but the fact that my front door had been hammered open and there was this flurry of chatter in a foreign language, I did what I’ve had to do in the past and called my bi-lingual friends for support. As soon as my Turkish/American friend Meltem/Lara arrived, the communication doors were open and I was able to bond with my neighbors for the first time in 8 months.
As we waited for the police, I went through a mental inventory of my worldly possessions – computer, passport, credit cards I usually take with me to work and that was no different this time. My worldly possessions don’t have a whole lot of street value and the only thing of value they could have gotten their hands on was some cash and a credit card I had stashed away in a secret spot.
Police and locksmith arrived simultaneously and the flurry of building-mates stood there and watched as they used a hammer and what looked like a hanger to pry open the door. At least the perpetrators were kind enough to close the door behind them when they left. The last BANG opened the door and the flurrying sea parted so I could walk into the light pouring in through my balcony door. Before I took the first step in I knew they had been there. Drawers were opened that I’ve never touched and lights were on that I don’t turn on in the mornings. The guy I rent the apartment from had a closet in the second bedroom with his own things in it that he kept locked. They took the hammer to that too. Even though they only found neckties and a VCR from 1983 in there, this must have preoccupied the burglars long enough to keep them from getting to my secret stash. I will not divulge my secret here, but it seems as though it didn’t have to be too secret because my camera, video camera and netbook computer were all sitting out in the wide open and weren’t even touched. The one thing they did take was a necklace I bought for myself a few months back, but really, none of my jewels could compare in value to a netbook computer.
This all ended with very supportive neighbors, friends and even police officers that were concerned for my wellbeing and me feeling quite relieved knowing how much worse it could have been. My dad said how lucky I was and that I should go right out and buy a lottery ticket. Not sure my luck would win me a million TL, but it does have me feeling pretty damn fortunate!
Please don’t anyone worry. I will be sleeping at a friend’s house until this door is replaced and soon after I will be getting on an airplane departing Turkey. Until then, I’ll just keep my stash hidden, be grateful to the wonderful people around me and hope my good luck continues.
